


Simplicity

by morganya



Category: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-07
Updated: 2005-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson has eyes in the back of his head. Written for <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/qeplot/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/qeplot/"><strong>qeplot</strong></a>'s holiday challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simplicity

  
Carson overhears the conversation when he's coming back from the bar. The restaurant is new, already draped with holiday excess, and it's taken him twenty minutes to maneuver around the ribbon-wrapped pillars and servers wearing elf hats. It's lucky he didn't spill the drinks on the way.

It's supposed to be a business brunch, he and Ted flinging around the names of possible stores to use, but they've both gotten bored with the sheer flood of names, and it's too early in the morning to be working anyway.

Carson sidesteps a server carrying a tray of something that could be danishes, or maybe cinnamon rolls, something sticky and raisin-studded, moving slowly towards the table. Ted has his back turned to him, slouched casually over the table, cell phone cupped in one hand (Miss Manners would kill him), saying, "I'm in a _restaurant_," with a sort of pleading coyness, and Carson immediately gets interested.

He stops behind the table, willing himself to be still, smiling brightly at the servers' annoyed looks. Ted doesn't look up, still absorbed in whoever it is he's talking to, saying, "I think you've got enough distractions at this point. Oh, come _on_..."

He's going to have to grill Ted when he sits back down again. Someone brushes against his back; he only keeps from spilling Bloody Mary all over him by a quick wrist-flick, tomato juice splashing onto the back of his hand.

Ted laughs - not the short, restrained laugh that follows someone else's joke, not the knowing cackle that signifies that he's amusing himself, something else entirely, darker and softer, quietly intimate. Carson really needs to stop the eavesdropping.

"Oh my God, I barely made it back alive," he says very loudly. "I may have contusions."

Ted jumps, says quickly into the phone, "I gotta go. No, I gotta go, I've got a kinda...Yeah, bye." He hangs up and blinks innocently at Carson. Carson puts the drinks down and reaches for a napkin.

"I'm surprised at you," he says. "Talking on the phone in the middle of brunch. Who was that?"

"Just killin' some time," Ted says. He picks up his drink. "What the hell did they put in this? Cucumbers? That's just wrong."

"Have you got some hottie stashed away somewhere, Ted? Someone new jingling your bells?"

Ted rolls his eyes. "Aren't we meant to be talking about stores now?"

Carson stares at him impassively. Ted says, "Carson, no way. There are other things to talk about."

"This must be interesting."

"Not enough." Ted looks around the room, suddenly turning distant, and Carson knows he's not likely to start gossiping any time soon. "I guess they think everything worth doing is worth overdoing. This place looks crazy."

Carson says, "I think I want to have a Charlie Brown Christmas this year."

"I'd have thought you'd want something a little less...steeped in Americana."

"Why?" Carson says. "It'll be fun. I maybe wouldn't have the sad clown tree, though. Maybe I'll just give a recital. I'm not really up on my Bible quotations, though. Maybe I'll go ice-skating instead."

"Mmm-hmm." Ted pokes at the celery stalk in his drink, then picks it out of the glass and crunches contemplatively on it. "Holidays never live up to the ones on TV, do they?"

"I don't think so," Carson says.

*****

In the offices at Scout, they're all ready to flee. Kyan keeps rotating his shoulders and rolling his neck, Thom alternates between staring out into space and wrestling with Jai, which Jai tolerates wearily, Ted makes notes on a pad of ivory paper; Carson sprawls in a chair at the head of the table.

_I spend my life with these people,_ Carson thinks, and it's not a new thought but it always manages to surprise him. It's an artificial intimacy, created by the demands of the job, but he still knows these people better than some members of his own family.

"My mom wants me to go to church with her," Jai says suddenly. "On, like, Christmas Eve."

"When'd she say this?" Kyan says.

"Last week. She says she's worried or something."

"You know, Jai, I don't think that's a new thing," Ted says quietly.

"I _know_," Jai says. "Me, my brother, my stepdad and her. I don't know why she's gotten all concerned again, all of a sudden."

"Maybe that's your present," Carson says. "A stocking stuffed full of Bibles."

"She'll try anything," Jai says. "It's just worse on holidays. Something about Jesus' birthday makes her crazy."

"I think you should do it," Thom says.

For a minute, everyone just stares at him.

"What?" Thom says. "Oh my God, it'll make her happy, Jai. It's one night out of your life."

"It's one night of _fire and brimstone_, Thom."

"_I'm_ going to Midnight Mass with my father," Thom points out. "Jai, she'd like you to."

"You know," Kyan says, "it's kind of against the point of the holidays, your forcing yourself to go to something that you're really not into."

"But -" Thom starts. He looks pleadingly over at Ted.

"I think what Thom means," Ted says, "is it's not about going to church in this case, it's about being with your family."

"Yeah," Thom says. He nods at Ted.

Jai scowls. "It's gonna suck."

"Well, it's _Christmas_," Thom says. "It's like the season of - of heart attacks and alcoholism, is what it is."

"My doctor keeps wondering why I keep asking for more Xanax," Carson says. "And then he says, 'Oh, yeah, it's Christmas. Here you go.'"

*****

His sister calls him three days before Christmas, wondering if he's coming home. He manages to distract her, asks about Morgan, avoids any questions about his brother. His mother sent out Christmas cards the previous week, with a picture of snowmen representing the Three Wise Men. He put it on his mantle anyway, wincing.

Two days before Christmas, it starts to snow. Having a cigarette out on his balcony, he turns his head upwards and watches fat thick bits of white floating down, brushing across his cheekbones, cool as a chaste kiss. On the street, the flakes melt when they hit the pavement at first, then start to pile up, whirling across the street like white dust when the wind picks up.

He left the Christmas presents until the last minute, again, and he's rushing from store to store trying to get everything together - the stores have nothing but the remnants of excess left, all the red and green ribbons and fake holly can't disguise that, but he still manages to get most of the list together with a minimum of hair-pulling. The snow keeps falling, but the pavement is cold and slushy, gone gray from car exhaust.

Three blocks from his apartment, he thinks about doing a Gene Kelly move, swinging up on the lamp post, burdened as he is with bags, gloves slipping around the icy metal, but he's too laden down and worn out to really go with it. Across the street, he sees someone familiar - a small, skinny figure in a long, black coat, hauling about as many bags as Carson is - but it takes about two minutes before he recognizes Ted's scowl under his black hat.

"Hi!" Carson sings across the street, the word coming out polysyllabic. He waves a Macy's bag at Ted.

Ted looks up and gives him a rather wan smile. "Hello."

Carson hurries across the street, ignoring the honking cars. He brushes a kiss against Ted's cold cheek. "Aren't you festive. Anything for me in those?"

"When did everything get so _expensive_?" Ted asks. "Do they see me coming and jack the prices up? Everything's always gotta be such an effort."

"What'd you get?" Carson starts to kneel down.

"Hey, hey, hey," Ted says, and bats at him ineffectually. "Those are surprises. Knock that off."

"I'm curious!"

"You're _nosy_. You'll get your present on Christmas like everyone else. I didn't think you'd still be shopping this late."

"I like to wrestle housewives from Great Neck for gifts. Keeps me limber."

"Well, any exercise is good exercise."

"You still spending money, or are you done?"

"I don't know if I'm done, but I'm sick of it, anyway. I was attempting to slog home."

"Let's have coffee. My apartment's closer to here than yours."

Ted looks tempted. "I really should go home and get these wrapped..."

"My ears are frostbitten, Ted."

"Carson, I...All right. Ten minutes."

Ted's cell phone goes off two seconds after they walk into Carson's apartment. Ted shrugs apologetically at him and fumbles for the phone, snowflakes falling off his coat.

"Hello? Oh, hey. No, I'm at Carson's. I thought you'd be off in sunny Cali by now. What? What happened?"

"Who's that?" Carson hangs his coat up, shoving his shopping bags to one side. He'll wrap them later.

Ted covers the receiver with one hand. "Thom." He turns back to the conversation. "How long have you been there? Well, that's what they say about everything in Chicago. You'll be out on the beach in two hours. At Carson's. Because I was shopping and I ran into him on the street. We're havin' - okay." He holds out the phone to Carson. "Thom wants to say hello."

Carson takes the phone and chirps, "Hi!" Ted rolls his eyes and hangs up his coat.

"Carson." Thom sounds frazzled and faint, muffled by background noise. "Carson, I'm in an _airport_."

"Wow. How'd that happen?"

"I hate connecting flights," Thom continues, as if he hadn't heard. "They canceled my first flight and moved me onto another one, and then that one took me to Chicago and then, like, never _left_, and I've been sittin' in Starbucks waiting for the fucking snow to stop falling so I can get out to L.A., but I don't think that's going to happen for like a million years."

"Is the barista cute?"

"I fuckin' _hate_ traveling for Christmas," Thom says. "I gotta get my dad to move back home. Where'd you find Ted, anyway?"

"Wandering the streets of Chelsea. Like a lost soul in Gucci shoes."

"They aren't actually Gucci," Ted says in the direction of the receiver.

"Lemme talk to him. Bye. Merry Christmas."

Carson holds out the phone to Ted. Ted nods and takes it, turning sideways and brushing at his hair with his free hand. "Hey," he says.

Carson goes into the kitchen and makes coffee, laying out cups and saucers, the milk softly splashing as he pours it into the creamer. Ted always tells him that he doesn't bother to make an effort, he's too impatient and too anxious to move onto the next thing, so he forces himself to move slowly and languidly, listening to the coffee maker brewing.

When he goes back in the living room, Ted is on the balcony, still on the phone, his back turned to Carson. He slouches over the railing, without his coat, snow falling on him, too absorbed in the conversation to brush it away.

For a second Carson just stands and watches, caught in the simplicity of it.

The coffee maker whistles in the kitchen. He walks towards it, slowly.

By the time he's gotten everything together and walked back into the living room, Ted is off the balcony, brushing snowflakes out of his hair. He shrugs at Carson. "Thom just goes on and on. Even when he's not stressed out."

"I was about to send a St. Bernard out to rescue you."

"It wasn't that bad." The snowflakes in Ted's hair have turned to water now. He sits down and reaches for a coffee cup, sighing as he bends his face over the steam.

Carson picks up his own cup, takes a sip: not bad, decent French roast. "Now tell me all about how long you and Thom have been sleeping together."

Ted chokes on his coffee.

Carson pats him on the back and waits for him to stop sputtering. Ted gulps and finally manages, "We aren't - I mean - how'd you -"

"It wasn't hard to guess," Carson says. "There were certain..._restrained gestures_."

Ted looks suddenly disappointed. "But I thought we were being so clever."

"It's not pulling off a bank heist, for God's sake. So, have you been violating any sexual harassment laws in the workplace? I thought the wardrobe room smelled a little funny last time I was in there -"

"Don't," Ted says.

Carson shuts up. Ted puts his cup down.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Carson says after a minute.

Ted takes off his glasses and polishes them with his sleeve. "I think it just happened that way. Plus, Carson, you've got kind of a big mouth, you know?"

"I can keep a secret," he says, offended.

"Not after two martinis, you can't." Ted puts his glasses back on.

"David would be upset, maybe," Carson says, "but he'd have gotten over it."

"Jai would get all upset that we hadn't said anything and feel left out," Ted says, counting off on his fingers, "and Kyan would get all _earnest_, you know how he does, about how we _were_, and you would make jokes of the worst possible taste, and then it would hit the papers, and then Thom and I would have to do interviews explaining that we aren't going to try to adopt a baby and move to Vancouver."

"You're overthinking things a little."

"It just...This is how it is, Carson. Just simple. I don't want to complicate it."

"Everything's complicated, peanut."

Ted smiles a little. "Yeah, but it's good to try." He picks his cup back up and rotates it between his hands. "Don't tell anyone, all right? Or just try not to."

"I'll try to avoid getting drunk in front of people."

"Thanks."

"You know you two can't pull a Greta Garbo forever," Carson says. "You're going to tell someone."

"That seems likely," Ted says. "Just not now, though."

It's gotten dark outside, the abrupt winter switch from afternoon to midnight. In the reflected light from Carson's balcony, the snow keeps falling, silently, silvery bits of snow appearing and disappearing in the dark. Ted reaches for his hand.

"I'm glad it was you," he says. "If someone was going to find out. You know us best."

"That's right," Carson says. He looks over at Ted, tired and still a little embarrassed and somehow protective. Carson has the feeling it's not just self-protection.

"While we're at it, Ted. Why do you think we never got together?"

"Because I never could have made an honest woman out of you."

"Isn't that just the story of my life," Carson says. "Always the trollop."

Ted squeezes his hand. "You just never think about the simple things, Carson. It's all glamour."

"Has to be something," Carson says. For a minute, he sits and watches the snow fall, still holding onto Ted's hand. "Feels like Christmas, doesn't it?"


End file.
